Moscow accuses US diplomats of ‘puppeteering’ Ukraine

A leading Russian Foreign Ministry official has condemned the US State Department attempts to influence the political situation in volatile Ukraine and warned that such behavior could lead to tragic results.

The United States is trying to impose a “Western vector of
development” on Ukraine while camouflaging their intent with
calls not to obstruct the free choice of the Ukrainian people,
Russian news agencies quoted the ministry’s Aleksandr Lukashevich
as saying.

The Russian diplomat called such an attitude
“puppeteering”, adding that the recent statement by US
State Department spokesperson Marie Harf was a typical example.
In the statement, the US gave instructions regarding future
actions of the Ukrainian government, Lukashevich said. Such
instructions included a demand to stop all cases against the
participants in the street riots, and to immediately start to
form a multi-party technical government, the Russian official
stated.

Such US behavior is very well known and it leads to tragic
results, the Foreign Ministry representative emphasized.

Lukashevich also said that the US had apparently started
"casting" for future places in the technical Ukrainian
government, or at least such a conclusion could be made from a
telephone conversation by a top US diplomats that had been made
public on YouTube. In the clip that appeared on the internet in
early February, Washington's new top diplomat for Europe,
Victoria Nuland, is heard saying “f**k the EU" while speaking with
the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyat, on how to end the
ongoing political crisis in Ukraine. The conversation continues
with Nuland suggesting that one of Ukrainian opposition leaders,
Vitaly Klichko is not fit for government work and should make way
for another candidate, Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

As fresh violence erupted on Kiev's streets on Tuesday the
Russian Foreign Ministry issued another statement. It considers
the crisis “a direct result of the permissiveness policy
exercised by those western politicians and European structures
who were from the very beginning turning a blind eye at the
aggressive actions of the radical forces in Ukraine.” The
ministry added that such an attitude was encouraging the radicals
to escalate the violence and further provoke their opponents.

Russian diplomats again called upon the Ukrainian opposition to
abandon threats and ultimatums and start a meaningful dialogue
with the authorities in order to take the country out of the deep
crisis.

Russian politicians have repeatedly called on their foreign
colleagues to abstain from interfering in the Ukrainian political
crisis. In January the upper and lower houses of the Russian
parliament passed separate declarations that called the civil
unrest in Kiev an organized campaign aimed at displacing lawfully
elected officials. The Russian MPs also warned that the Ukrainian
crisis could have grave consequences for the country’s people,
statehood and territorial integrity.

In mid-December the Russian and Ukrainian presidents agreed on a
plan under which Russia is buying $15bn of Ukrainian debt in
2-year bonds and also giving Ukraine a $3.5 billion discount on
natural gas purchases on behalf of state-owned Gazprom.
Ukrainians will pay $268.5 per thousand cubic meters of natural
gas instead of $400, a nearly 33 percent discount.

At a recent government conference Putin spoke of the aid plan and
told officials that all contracts with Ukraine must be completely
fulfilled. However, the President added that Russia would wait
for Ukraine to form a new government before starting to execute
its obligations.